


Love Letters

by mofumanju



Category: Ensemble Stars! (Video Game)
Genre: Angst, Bittersweet Ending, Love Letters, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-19
Updated: 2018-01-19
Packaged: 2019-03-06 15:57:41
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,143
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13414662
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mofumanju/pseuds/mofumanju
Summary: Eichi might be dead, but he sure knows how to make Keito feels his presence even after his departure.





	Love Letters

**Author's Note:**

> I started writing this thing on april 2017. Today I wrote the last few words I needed to put an end to it. Magic.  
> I really wanted to finish this, and I wanted to write something so what a better chance? I haven't read it though, so if there's some incongruity between the whole fic minus the last past, forgive me. I hope you enjoy the reading!

Keito’s stomach is turned upside down, twisted, and nausea is slowly invading his esophagus, his throat, bile shaking inside him like waves of an angry ocean ready to invade, ready to overflow. He hasn’t slept at all, the last few days; day three is weightening on his shoulders, bending him with the hardest rock he has even had to bear upon his body. And it doesn’t matter, if his nose is red as his eyes, dry after nights spent with his head pressed against a wet pillow and whispering to himself to be strong enough, at least until this very moment. Incense is stroking his nostril with a kindness he doesn’t want, doesn’t need now, and when his eyes lock with the picture framed over the altar he swallows, wondering why he was so stubborn to tell his father to let him celebrate the memorial.   
  
He promised.    
  
He wishes the hand on his back was soothing, but it doesn’t help at all, his heart running fast, drumming in his ears like if it was an accompaniment to the sound of the _ mokugyo _ . He turns his head just a bit, meeting his father’s eyes - he knows his sorrow, he knows that his heart is pouring with sadness, a longing that won’t be satisfied anymore, not until Keito will be on the other side too, until he’ll be ashes on an urn as well. But he is alive, for now, standing in front of what is left of his childhood friend, and when he closes his eyes and lets sutras leave his mouth, Keito wonders if he’s doing fine, being his escort while he guides him to eternal peace.    
  
He wishes the ceremony ended soon, and the more he hopes for it, the slower time runs. It’s a curse - and he wonders if one day he’ll recover for the pain that’s eating his heart bit by bit, harsh, cruel.    
  
He is not sure. And meanwhile, air burns in his lungs and it’s too much, to ask himself not to cry. Tears will wet his words, and it’s okay, he guesses.    
Eichi always mocked him, telling him he would have cried like a baby when he had died, after all.

He was so right.

*

There is something wrong, stepping inside his room - there is still the fresh memory of Eichi walking on that tatami lingering in his mind, the image sewn on the back of his eyelids; Keito wonders for how long he’ll be able to remember it perfectly, that angelic silhouette moving around, always exploring even though he knew that place like the back of his hand. He sighs, turning the heater of the kotatsu on with every intention to spend the whole evening there, without meeting a single soul - he is too tired to speak: just the thought of it makes a knot build on his throat, and he is tired of crying. He still has to leave his room for a moment, though: he needs water, at least, since his stomach doesn’t seem to agree yet on eating food, and he’s grateful to his brother to stay silent, when he traverses the hallway and meets him. He gives him a soft brush on his shoulder, and Keito nods to thank him, bending his head and fastening his steps. There’s the low sound of the tv turned on in the kitchen, that helps him to hold on the thread of normality. He has a list of rituals he performs after every celebration, to reconnect himself with the realm of the alive, but this time is different, and how is he supposed to even try, when Eichi’s name keeps filling his head with arrogance?   
  
He enters the kitchen, and he’s glad to find a bottle of water next to the sink: he takes it without even thinking, running to his room a second later. He doesn’t want to meet his mother’s eyes, nor his father’s. For them, Eichi was just another name in the endless list of Tenshouins his family has buried over the years.   
  
For Keito, Eichi’s death is an unbearable stab on his chest. 

He sighs, slipping inside his room again and closing the shouji behind him. Tiredness is starting to hit him hard, making his head pound like a continual, uncomfortable presence; still, Keito doesn’t want to close his eyes and sleep - he is not ready to meet Eichi in his dreams, not so soon, not when he knows he can’t control them: accepting that his childhood friend doesn’t belong to this earth anymore is being already too hard without his subconscious helping.  
  
Keito places the bottle on the kotatsu, and he is about to slip under the blankets when something catches his eye for the first time since the day he received that damned call from Eichi’s mother. It’s pink like a cherry blossom, the post-it note hanging between his school books - he wonders for a moment how he didn’t notice it before this very moment, but well, he shouldn’t be that surprised, after all.  
  
His mind was drifting in well other places.  
  
He reaches for the piece of paper, when his feet bring him before his bookcase. There’s something wrong, with the presence of that post-it inside his room because, well,he has never owned pink notes to begin with. He’s trying to remember when it was the last time someone visited him before what happened and…

Oh.

That stab again, right on his heart. Eichi’s handwriting spreads on that pink veil like blood from an artery, creating flowers Keito isn’t ready to see yet. He doesn’t read what it’s written on it, he pretends for a moment he has forgotten what all those ideograms mean. The wound is too fresh, still bleeding copiously, and he is not ready - he’ll probably never be. 

He’s about to roll it into a ball and throw it in the bin, but he finds himself unable to do it. Eichi would hate him, probably, if he discarded him so easily. So he just keep that piece of paper between his trembling fingers, deciding that if he must face reality, it will be better to do it under the warm blankets of his kotatsu.    
And so he does.

It takes time, to get his eyes to that note - Keito pours a glass of water, drinks it, and repeat the same move twice, in a mild, useless attempt to soothe his heart; if Eichi was still there - alive, breathing - he would probably tell him to stop worrying over things he can’t change. Death has always been a close friend to the two of them, but now that he has to face it alone it just tastes like the most bitter medicine, and he has no sugar to help him swallow it.   
  
Lowering his eyes is painful, his sight meeting Eichi’s handwriting again, this time focusing on it - because he can’t ignore it forever, he never could to begin with. 

_ How am I supposed to rest in peace if you keep crying, Keito? If you don’t stop now, I’ll haunt you forever.  _

He stares at those words for a moment, and he realises just when his throat starts to itch, that he is holding his breath. There is something painful, in Eichi’s voice echoing inside his head, a cheerful tone so horribly in contrast with the sorrow he’s holding onto - and oh, when did he even listen to that idiot, anyway? He runs a hand over his mouth, as if it could help him holding back the tears.  
  
But it really doesn’t.   
  
Eichi knew. Eichi knew he was going to die, he knew and didn’t share a single thought with him, he didn’t-  
 _  
I’d rather see you smile, mh? I’m even willing to share a secret with you, if you listen to me. Oh well, I’ll do it anyway, it’s not like I can’t keep things from you. There’s a letter between the history book and your sketchbook. Take it. Read it. And please, stop crying._ _  
_ __  
I’m here, I’ll always be.

His throat is a nest for pain, low growls building one against another while he tries to preserve the little dignity he has been left after the memorial service; it’s like he suddenly can’t remember how to hold back anymore, how to avoid tears to wet his face every time his thoughts slip on Eichi’s smile, Eichi’s voice, Eichi’s warmth. He leaves the note on the table, hiding his arms under the warm blanket and resting his head on the wooden surface, eyes staring into nothingness as he tries to breathe, conceal, suppress the urge to weep like a child. It’s awful, how he has always known this days would have come, eventually, and still realises that pretending to be ready was a lie all along. Because Eichi is right, he is still there, his presence lingering around his room, and probably in every place they have shared time together, but it is, in fact, just his presence, and nothing more.   
  
It will take a lifetime to digest his absence.

*

He realises he has fallen asleep when his eyes crack open, welcoming him into a day that has long died, and has left space to the deep night. He is not sure of what time it is, but he can still hear some music around the house, meaning that his brother is still up, and restricting the options to a few ones. He feels dizzy, the heater forgotten on before he passed out - he would scold himself if he could, for putting his health at risk like that, but it’s too late after all, and he has never been too good at taking care of himself, after all ( _I was too busy taking care of someone else_ , his thoughts intrude, twisting his stomach uncomfortably. He wishes he could turn his brain off, for once). Raising his head is a difficult task; it takes a moment to straighten his back and make the rest of the body follow, and Keito regrets it a second later, when his head spins too fast to not feel nauseous.   
  
The food in front of him doesn’t really help. His mother must have called him for dinner, he thinks, and she didn’t insist when she noticed he wasn’t answering. The food is cold to the touch, and he’s not really hungry to try putting something in his stomach, not when he feels like that. He sighs, as he massages the bridge of his nose, his mind blissfully blank for a few instants. He doesn’t really last, anyway - not when his eyes fall on the pink post-it that reminds him Eichi’s death.

As if he could really forget about it for even a second.   
  
There is something else pushing to come out of his mind, and a moment later his face is turned towards his bookcase, eyes moving fast to search for something strange, something different. He is surprised, when he actually finds it. Like the post-it, he really didn’t notice anything different in his room during the last days, too busy with dealing with a loss he knew he would have had to come to terms with sooner or later. For a moment, he wonders if he can just let things go, for today, and find the strength to unroll his futon and get a proper rest.   
  
There is time, after all. Now, there is so much time to deal with this, that he really considers the idea, before he shakes his head and slips outside the kotatsu with a sigh. Air is cold around his warm body, but Keito doesn’t really find it uncomfortable. His steps are uncertain, his room looking for a moment like an unknown place - and somewhere he feels Eichi’s presence, a spirit ringing around him, brushing his shoulders with a gentle, cold touch. Another sigh escapes his mouth, low, sad, and he is not really sure to be the one controlling his body, when his left arm raises towards the bookcase, the index caressing the corner of that white envelope like it was something fragile, an ephemeral entity ready to disappear under his touch. He pulls the letter out, slowly, and there is his name written on its right side, black ink wonderfully twirling on a sea of white.   
  
He is not sure he wants to know what Eichi wrote before he passed away. And still, Keito feels like he owes him - he wonders how much effort did he put in holding that pen, when he remembers well how hard such a simple task was on his worst days. His hand trembles, and it’s not the cold, it’s not the dizziness keeping him company since he has opened his eyes, restlessness building on the tip of his stomach. With slow steps he goes back to his comfortable nest, placing the blanket over his thighs and crossing his legs under the table. 

The paper rips, when Keito tries to open the envelope without too much damage, but he doesn’t particularly mind. His eyes scroll rapidly over the page between his hands, when he unfolds it - there is a soft, far scent of lavender, red roses, and some other fragrance of the teas Eichi loved to drink. It’s a punch on his gut, strong and violent, but the only thing Keito can really do now is swallowing his fear down, together with a knot made of anxiety and saliva, and hoping to find the strength to get to the end of that letter without breaking into sobs again. 

Of course, it’s easier said than done.

_ If you are reading this, then I’m finally gone.  _

_ It’s not like I didn’t know my time was coming - we have known it for quite a long time now, haven’t we, Keito? But you know, I felt something breaking inside of me, and when God decides that the hands of your clock have to stop, well, you really can’t do anything to make him change his mind. At least, anything that I know.  _ __   
__  
I wonder if you are still crying? You’ve always been so stoic, Keito, trying to conceal your feelings like if being human was a shame. I’m sure you look horrible, and you know what hurts the most, mh? That you didn’t show me. Stupid, silly Keito. You made me waste my youth hoping to see you crumble, and you just do that the moment I’m as good as dead. It’s just unfair. You can’t spend your whole life calling me a nuisance and then feel alone because I’m not there to torment you. Thank God, I’ve never trusted your word on the matter. __   
__  
But I didn’t write this to talk to you about the sadness filling my heart to the thought of what I am losing now that I’m six feet under. I’m here to deliver a message. My own message, apparently, and it’s scattered all around your room, so you better start looking for the pieces. You know I like to play so, well. Let’s play, Keito.  __   
__  
And please, stop crying. 

 

He hates him. From the bottom of his heart, the only thing he can think about now is how much he hates that idiot, how much he wishes he was still alive just to punch him right in the face. God, the noises he is making are so loud that he wouldn’t be surprised, if the shouji slided to let his brother enter the room. He rubs his hand under his nose, in a mild attempt to calm himself down when he grits his teeth and tries to fill his lungs with air; why is it so hard, to control the pain inside his heart? The letter slips from his hands, falling on the blanket and finding a nest over his covered legs. 

He always, always asks for the impossible, even after death.

*

He doesn't talk about the letter with anyone, because he doesn't want to, because it is already hard to talk about Eichi without feeling his own voice cracking. He keeps getting calls, from Leo, from Rei, from Kuro, but the truth is that he is not ready to face a world where Eichi doesn't exist anymore. He spends most of the time inside the temple, sitting before he statue of a Buddha that seems to look at him in concern. The weight of his whole body hurts against his legs, but he doesn't mind - that kind of pain is bearable, helps him to divert his thoughts from the loop he finds himself into even when he tries to distract himself. He prays, eyes closed and air held on his lungs for as long as his body allows him to, because it helps his heart to slow his pace, and he can live with the illusion that he is getting over it, he is accepting the fact that he will have to live without a piece of his heart for the rest of his days. The world keeps turning around itself, like it did yesterday, like it did a year before and like it will do in the future, but the thought doesn't help him at all.

He feels alone. He feels lonely. 

*

His face is wet with tears, when he opens his eyes and dark welcomes him like a close friend, stroking his hair while, outside, nightingales sing a melody that should soothe his heart, but only make him feel bad, detached from the real world. He sits on his futon, sniffling like a child after a nightmare - his one wasn't, but he guesses it depends on the point of view. Because Eichi was smiling at him, in his dreams, pulling him closer and touching his face in such an intimate way that his stomach twists, remembering it. It gives him some kind of comfort, burying his face on his palms, pressing them on his swollen eyes. He honestly is so tired of crying that oh, at the moment he just wants to stop feeling like a garbage bag.

“Keito?”

He doesn't raises his head, when he hears the  _ shouji  _ sliding, and the voice of his mother is a gentle caress on his ears but he feels so  _ tired _ . He wonders if she can see him shaking his head, in the darkness. 

“I am fine,” he whispers, and he doesn't know if his voice sounds broken because of sleep, or because of the feeling of suffocation fast building on his chest. “Go back to sleep.”

He is grateful. Because his mother knows, his mother doesn’t push him to talk about something he doesn’t really want to show yet, and probably never will. She whispers something that Keito’s ears receive as an invite to try to go back to sleep, and he nods, his head still buried on his hands. The shouji slides again, shutting him out from the rest of the world, and for a moment he considers the idea to rest his head on the pillow again, and let his sleep lull him into another nightmare.   
  
It’s just a moment, though. His fingers sink on the blankets over his body, and he waits before he just pulls them aside, resting a hand on the futon and giving himself the push he needs to stand up. His stomach is upside down, now, but he doesn’t mind. He reaches for his glasses, he puts them on, and when the first steps he takes inside his room are uncertain, at least until he gets used to the darkness, the moon the only, dim source of light. 

_ I’m here to deliver a message. My own message, apparently, and it’s scattered all around your room, so you better start looking for the pieces. _

He turns the table lamp on, a yellowish light invading the room in an instant - it hurts his eyes, but he doesn’t care, not when he starts hearing blood rushing on his ears, not when he feet moves again in that familiar space that now looks like a unknown field. He wishes he could senses Eichi’s presence, his scent of tea and chrysanthemums that still lingers in his memories, even if it’s already start to fade, so fast that Keito is afraid of it. But Eichi is not there to guide him, and the only thing he can do is moving his hands over his books, in hope to see something different, to notice a peculiarity that has never been there before because of his blockhead childhood friend couldn’t put his hands in place. And still, nothing comes just brushing over their surface - there are no corner stinging his digits, nothing out of place that might help him to find what he is looking for. There’s sadness hitting on his chest, hard and crushing and impossible to fight, that guides his hands, and if a moment before he was worrying about trying to be as silent as possible, now it’s just impossible to hold all that and not explode. He never loses control, Keito, always so collected, always with some kind of mask on to conceal what’s really inside him and still, there is a rain of books falling around him, hitting his legs and feet - but he doesn’t care, he doesn’t feel pain. 

Nothing can compare to what he feels inside, after all. Because he could move mountains and open waters to walk in between, but miracles don’t exist in the real world, miracles are a fantasy given to humans to keep leaving with their fears tamed until their death - just a fantasy, and nothing more. 

He can’t see behind his glasses, lens soiled with tears he didn’t even notice he was shedding, and all those books at his feet just look like a sea of colours that aren’t worth to be seen anymore. After all, what’s the meaning of living when his heart is shattered into pieces because of the absence of the most important person in the tiny, useless world in which Keito still lives, still breathes? Prayers won’t bring him back, nothing will; Eichi is gone, dust trapped in an urn that doesn’t give him freedom - and he hates, how people tries to comfort him by telling that it doesn’t count if he is not on this world anymore, that he will always live in his memories, in his heart.   
  
Of course it counts.   
  
He lowers his head, pain pressing on the tip of his throat, and it takes a moment to focus his sight on the books around him, after he takes off his glasses to clean them, and delete the traces of his tears, at least from his lens. There’s a stain of blue and green which attracts his attention, and he knows what it is before he puts his glasses back.   
  
He hates it. He wants to burn it.

Instead, he just bends over it, taking it from the floor - that half-done comic Eichi loved so much, that story Eichi desired to much to see the end of.    
And in a moment, he knows. The book opens on his hands, its pages spreading like a butterfly’s wings; they show him the dream he put aside for the sake of his love, for the sake of the dream of a man who’s not walking by his side anymore. And there, in the middle of that story, lies the first piece of Eichi’s heart, wrapped inside an envelope that protects it - that showed to him only because Fate wanted him to see it.

Keito doesn’t know if he should read it now, when the moon has already disappeared from the sky to leave place to a black blanket full of luminous dots - he should listen to his mother’s advice and rest, but his eyes are glued to that piece of paper and he can almost feel eyes staring at him in anticipation.   
  
What a silly thought. The paper ripping sounds comfortable, in a way. He doesn’t know why, but it calms his heart a bit.   
_  
__You know, I’ve always known I had an expiration date. I mean, everybody has it, but… I knew since the day I was born that mine would have come just earlier than anybody else’s. All those days spent telling you I were going to die soon… you were right, you know? I was trying to stretch my lifespan while I could, exorcising death my mocking it, joking about it like if it was something silly. I guess it didn’t work. Maybe I got the opposite effect, maybe I pissed it off so much that it decided to come earlier. But well, worrying about it won’t change anything, now._ _  
_ _  
You know, Keito? Even if my expiration date came so soon, I am not sad. Because I can happily say that I’ve spent my whole lifetime with you. And while people have a passion for destroying love, spreading lies about how it can’t last for more than three years, I’d rather disagree. Because I loved you until my last breath, I loved you for my personal, short forever, and surely for more than a short, meaningless three years._ _  
_ __  
I’m sorry it can’t be the same for you.

_ I’ve two requests. One. I asked Anzu to finish this book for me since you became so stubborn about giving up on your dreams, but she’s a good girl and refused. Mizuhanome’s work is Mizuhanome’s, she said, so… finish this. Bring it at my grave. It will keep me company when you can’t come to visit. _ __   
__  
Two. People tend to ask their loved ones to not cry or suffer, but… I am not a good person, I never was. Childish and selfish are my middle names, and I won’t put myself down. Please, Keito. Don’t forget about me. Let me be the ache in your chest, let me be the pain you feel whenever you realise I’m not by your side anymore. I don’t want to be forgotten. Not by you. And if remembering me brings you pain, let me stay with you. Cry me in the form tears, shout my name, curse me, do whatever you want but don’t send me away.

_ Don’t forget me. Don’t forget us.  _ __   
  


It’s so hard holding back, so hard that he gives up instantly, clutching that letter to his heart and breathing hard through his nostrils - there’s the phantom of Eichi’s scent, in that piece of paper, there is voice in each single word, an old tape repeating in loop inside his head.    
  
He should be used to loss by now, because he has always walked the path of death since he was a child, and still, there’s such a huge difference between burying someone unrelated to his person, and burying someone so close.    


Eichi meant the world, for him.   
  
He pushes tears away with the tip of his thumb, letting himself fall on the chair before his desk. He opens the comic on his legs, leafing through the pages - it looks so old, so far in time, that period of his life where he dedicated all his being into writing stories to make his sick childhood friend happy. His drawing style was so unripe, a flower still to bloom, but Eichi was the perfect representation of happiness, whenever he brought him new pages, new bits of an alternative reality to the one they were forced to live. 

He should have drawn the end before, he should have given Eichi the happy ending he deserved. Reaching for a pencil, after a period of time that looks like a whole lifetime to him, he wonders if he’s still in time. 

* 

_ This letter might be entitled “The things I hate about you”. Because you know, Keito, you’re not perfect. Not at all. You’re the worst, terrible man I’ve ever met in my short, miserable life, and you should be proud of it, because it’s a great record. There’s only a person that beats you, and that one person is yours truly. I’m sure you agree with me.  _ __   
__  
You have, honestly, the worst way to show your worry to the people you love. You’re like an upgraded version of Heidi’s Miss Rottenmeier, and it isn’t necessarily a good thing. You’re the worst image of a control freak, if there was a prize you’d surely win it, but that’s probably the cutest thing about your incredibly long list of things that are wrong with you. It’s incredible how you kept scaring me to death even when we finally grew up - have you any idea of how many times did I have to find you asleep on the Student Council’s desk before I started to get used to the fact that you weren’t dead? Well, it turned into something fun at some point, but still. You gave me nightmares when I was a child and you kept reprimanding me for the silliest things, and you still did when you became the grown-up man you didn’t even wish to become. Where did you hide your rebellious side, huh? Where is that cute chuuni who thought he was superior to everyone, and acted like the worst of thugs? It was such a good thing Keito, and you wasted the best you had during your adolescence just to become a boring man with a mouth full of “how incorrigible”s. Even Tsukinaga-kun misses your old self. You should give him a chance, you know? Let yourself go, take your arrow and shoot him to death, give me someone to torment even in the afterlife. Stop being so strict with those around you, and most of all…

_ Stop being so strict with yourself. Live what it is left of your life to its fullest, run until your lungs burn and shout your pain out loud, who cares about what people might think about you, who cares about them anyway. You’re the jar full of cookies that every mother doesn’t want their children to touch, ready to explode, impossible to open unless you don’t organise a secret expedition. Explode, Keito. Do it for me, explode in a bunch of sparkles and let yourself go. It’s my fault you turned like this, but I am gone, now, so set yourself free. Stop being Rottermeier and be Keito. Just Keito. Take care of yourself, you can even take care of those around you if you want, but just stop with this trend to sacrifice yourself for the sake of others. You’re not a samaritan, you’re just a… you’re just Keito. And there’s only a Keito in this world, and I want him to live a long, happy life. _ _   
_

_ Even if it’s without me, and that’s what I hate the most. _

*

His back hurts because of his own negligence, but Keito doesn’t notice until he has to get up of his chair, and take a few steps outside of his room. He doesn’t really care about it though - not when his eyes still hurt, not when breathing is still so hard. He has forgotten his phone somewhere inside his school bag, abandoned in a corner of his room - 

“You should try to get out, Keito,” his brother has told him already too many times to be counted on the fingers of his hand, but every time he smiles, nods, and that’s all. He doesn’t step outside, he doesn’t even try.    


When he’s not in his room he spends most of his time in the temple, seiza weighing on his legs, making them numb for minutes, hours, he doesn’t really know; he loses track of time way too often, and when he opens his eyes and his lips stops reciting mantras, the sun has set who knows when. He is glad nobody comes to bother him - as well as he is glad his father isn’t asking him to take part on funeral services, after Eichi’s death. Honestly, he is afraid he couldn’t stand more than a few minutes in front of a coffin, now of all times. Death has always been a friend, somehow - Eichi loved to define it as one of his closest one - but now, he can’t really find any comfort in that subtle relationship they built around it. There is no light that shines for him, now. And still, it’s the smell of the incense smoke which permeates the room to put his heart at ease, or at least that’s the illusion he gets when he shuts the world out and prays. He still feel lost, like he was in a small boat in the middle of an angry ocean, but sometimes hands hold him still, and he can almost feel alive again.   


It’s hard, waking up in the morning and knowing that there won’t be anyone waiting for him at the gates of school, knowing that nobody will try to hide his redbull cans in the most silly places just to annoy him - nobody will hug his back and kiss his cheek like if it was the most natural thing in the world. And despite the pain, despite the constant stab he feels in his chest, Keito would never think, not even for a second, that he wished he had never met him. But God if it hurts.

  
There are pictures, scattered on the floor, an enveloped ripped too fast lying somewhere under the window of his room. It’s raining outside, but the smell of rain is a good company, and the grey of the sky makes everything dull, more bearable. There are twenty, thirty pictures maybe, Keito didn’t count them, even if he’s looking at them since he found the letter, well hidden between his clothes inside his closet. They are always close, missing teeth in their smiles and eyes way too big for their tiny faces during their first years of friendship, and then there is a huge jump in the future, middle school left behind, swallowed by a dark hole to make space to a new future - a future Keito didn’t even want, until he stepped inside Yumenosaki. He regrets not taking more pics now, but Eichi gave those to him. It’s a start.    


He picks one of them from the floor, a fond smile curving his lips. It’s probably the first time he smiles after what happened, and still it doesn’t taste like happiness, no. But it tastes like old memories, laughters coming from a past time ringing in his ears, so it’s okay.     
He doesn’t expect to find more in them, though. But of course, Eichi promised letters everywhere, Eichi asked him to play so of course that envelope couldn’t contain only pictures. Messages are scattered in every piece laying on the floor, resting on the back of those pictures.   


_ You looked so cute when you were a child, where did you hide that side of you? The frown on your face when you look at me, is it my fault? Did I make you worry too much? You’ll get old too fast if you don’t stop, Keito. _ _   
_

He shakes his head, looking at the picture again - their eyes are shining so bright, and it’s hardly believable that all those photos were taken between an admission at the hospital and a surgery (that didn’t save him, at last, his mind adds against his better judgement).   


He should turn them all, because he knows he will find a message behind each one of them. But he takes his time, setting down the one he’s holding back on the floor, and picking up another one. He doesn’t remember taking this, they didn’t use to take pictures while Eichi was recovering - he supposes his mother was the one who took it, judging by their natural posing. Keito looks so immersed in the reading of a book that noticing someone behind the door would have been probably impossible.   


_ Thank you for being the reason why I kept forgetting I was going to die young, Keito. You showed me the light, you taught me what it means to be loved, how it feels to not be treat like a burden, as a shell destine to rotten. You were the worst friend, the best friend, and too many other things you don’t need to know. _ _   
_

It’s incredible, how his mind tricks him, and plays Eichi’s voice in his head like he was in the room with him - it’s only the phantom of a voice he will hardly forget, sewn like a thread right on the walls of his heart. And it might be painful now, it probably will for a lot of time, but it’s not something he could get rid of that easily, after all. All those pictures on the floor, all those messages behind him, are just a proof of a love that was there all the time, even when they fought, even when they were apart. Eichi might be gone, lost in a land Keito can’t find without his childhood friend offering his hand, but he is still there, and as much as it can be hard, he should just accept it.    


He should.    


He turns all the pictures without second thought, fast and focused. Eichi’s handwriting is everywhere, clean, elegant, and pulses like blood running restlessly in his veins.    


_ I miss you. _

_ Do you still think about me sometimes?  _

_ I am not sure I can contain all this inside of me for long. _ _   
_

_ I love you. _

_ I want to know what your lips taste of. _ _   
_

_ I can’t bear the idea you will forget me one day. I want you to me mine forever.  _ _   
_

_ I love you. _

_ I love you. _

_ I love you. _

_ * _

It’s not like he wanted to set some distance from the real world, leaving his phone on his school bag for days now. He didn’t really mean to make someone worry about him: he was just too worried trying not to drown in the feeling of longing, in that desperate pool of sorrow that sometimes feels too comfortable to really wish to leave. He can’t really hide his surprise, when he gets back to his phone and sees more e-mails filling the screen that he imagined - messages of missing calls, texts full of his name,  _ stop hiding, come back, did the aliens abduct you?  _

Still, Keito is not sure he wants to show himself at school, not when everything would remind him of what he had, and what he has lost. His attendance wasn’t bad, after all, before Eichi took his leave to a better place, so he should be fine, if he lets the few remained weeks of the year die. He should take care of the Student Council, now that its head has fallen, but his mind would be too busy thinking about things he can’t have anymore.   


He will answer to them later, maybe. For now, he just want to be left alone with his thoughts. 

*

It feels strange, taking a step outside home after weeks, let the cold air of the early morning brush against his face with a gentle caress, a welcome back that Keito isn’t sure he wants to accept yet. It feels strange, stepping on grounds he has walked a thousand times, without keeping his face low to stare at the grey asphalt. He doesn’t have a place in mind - he doesn’t want to have it - when he finally comes back to life, but his body seems to be set in a well definite place, driven by that sweet weight on his left shoulder, and after all, he doesn’t find himself surprised, when his eyes meet the huge gates of the graveyard. Still, the urge to run away is strong, so strong that for a second he even takes a step back, shaking his head as his heart start running a tad faster. Thoughts and thoughts are piling inside of his head, turning it blank for a second - and it’s in that moment of weakness that he finds his chance to take those steps he needs to get inside that sacred, quiet place. Some gestures are just automatic - taking a wooden tub, filling it with water, whispering good mornings to the people he meets while he takes the steps towards reality, are things he has not to think about.  People find comfort in the silence of the dearly departed, but what is the point for him, when stopping before Eichi’s grave he will be met by a cold stone, and not by eyes glimmering like the sea in the warmest summer?

“Ohi,” he says, and his voice is so hoarse that he feels ashamed of himself, for having allowed pain to take such a toll on him. “I’m sorry it took me so much.”   


He leaves the tub on the ground, burying the ladle on water. He has taken care of so many tombstones by now, that he’s somehow grateful for that, when the gentle sound of the rubbing his making his head empty for that small amount of time. Cleaning Eichi’s is like cleaning his soul, after all, polishing it so that he can reflect the rays of a timid sun and spread them like a prysm, light scattered in tears of a rainbow they won’t walk under anymore. Rustling inside his bag, Keito isn’t surprised to find a few stick of incense - he has always had a bad habit of bringing them anywhere, because the smell soothes his heart more than lots of other things in the world.

… bullshits. He did because he knew this day would have come, eventually.

“I’m sorry I didn’t bring flowers, I wasn’t really planning on coming here yet. But you don’t really care, do you…” The sound of his knees cracking as he crouches makes him smile softly, if not because Eichi seems to still have some power over him, even now that he’s on the other side of the gates of Heaven. He gets caught staring at the little flame coming from his lighter, at the smoke that, curling beautifully in the air, surpasses the tombstone and loses itself in the air. “I didn’t even want to leave home to begin with. If you’d ask me why I did, I wouldn’t know what to say…”

Standing up again is painful, months of hard work at school deleted with a brush of that same ladle he used to clean Eichi’s tombstone. Still, he has to offer water to his friend, before he can finally let himself go, and join his hands in prayer.   


… Ah, as if.   


“You should have told me. You went away without a word, and hamstrung me without giving me even a single chance to give you my last regards.”    
His words taste bitter against his tongue, but it’s not like that. It’s always been like this between them, hasn’t it? Eichi being the child with the world at his feet, and Keito pulling his ear to be sure he didn’t fly too far from him with the excuse to teach him a bit of humility. His hand slips nervously on his back, fingers brushing against something rough, but he shakes his head, pushes the thought away for now, because he’s not sure he’ll be able to talk, later, so…

“You really didn’t put yourself down until the very end, you spoiled brat. Keeping something like that from me and then claiming you wanted to play. Dead people can’t play with those they leave behind, I hope you learnt that by now.”   


He stops. He doesn’t like the sound of his voice, so low and hoarse and making him vulnerable again, stabbed with a million knives that aim to his heart without a hint of mercy. But he breathes, slowly, closing his eyes - noticing how they are watering too fast, now that he has to face the truth in such a cruel way. Eichi is not even there, why should he?   


“And you know what the worst thing is, Eichi? The worst thing is that I played with you. I played and made a fool of myself. Do you know how much it hurt? I hope you are happy where you are, because I’m afraid the hole on my chest will take a while to recover. Look at what you are doing, bringing me to scold you even when you are-” He closes his eyes, fingers trembling as he brushes them gently against his lips. “Even when you are dead.”   


He can’t do this. He just can’t. Speaking is hard when words keep dying on the back of his throat, when everything pushes so hard to get out of his heart. It’s splitting in two, craving to release words he has kept a secret for years, and he has lost his chance to say because of a cruel fate that turned Eichi’s clock hands too fast. How is he supposed to let love pour out of his chest, when the subject of that said love is gone for good? Because no, Keito knows that he won’t be able to forget him, even when he’ll have doubled his age, even when he’ll be old enough to forget the names and faces of those he’ll hold dear in the future. Eichi is a scar on his heart, is a wound that will drip blood and love, pure and alive, until there will be air to burn with his lungs.

“I love you,” he whispers, shaking his head, smiling despite the pain, “I love you, and I’ve never told you. It’s useless to say you didn’t give me the chance. I’m sure you did, and I prefered to ignore it. I’m an idiot. I’m sorry. I’m sorry, I’m-”   
It’s like drowning in cold water, isn’t it? His eyes hurt, but the banks of his soul’s river broke down just like him, and there’s no way he can hold this back anymore. He thought he had stop whining when he was a child, but no. He can hear Eichi’s voice on the back of his head, shushing him and stroking his back while he smiles.  

_ How am I supposed to rest in peace if you keep crying? _

Maybe he doesn’t want him to rest in peace. Eichi wants to be his torment, his everlasting companion, so why shouldn’t he be as egoist, and force Eichi to haunt him until his body will shut down and he’ll go to sleep forever by his side? He’s never wanted to live in a world without him, and now that he’s forced to, he doesn’t know what to do. 

Keito rubs his eyes and sniffs like a lost child, trying to take a deep breath to calm down at least his heart. It’s always been good at being collected, and now he can barely speak a word without hearing his own voice trembling. How disgraceful.

“You are having fun now, aren’t you? How incorrigible.” he shakes his head, biting his lip and looking at the tombstone as if it could really reply on Eichi’s behalf. Of course it can’t.   


He shakes his head, rustling on his bag again, and that weight on his left shoulder he brought with him until that moment is suddenly lighter - he can’t say the same of the one on his chest, but after all, things like that only happen in manga, don’t they? 

He steps closer to the stone, crouching in front of it, brushing his fingertips against the engrave of Eichi’s name with his free hand while the other one places that comic Eichi was so fond of, roughly sketched but finished, at last.   


He needed Eichi to die, to start to draw again.   


“Read it as much as you want. I’m sure you’ll have lots to criticize, when I’ll see you again…”

The little time he spends standing up again, he uses it to go around the grave, and find his place just behind it. He sits on the ground, and who cares if it’s disrespectful, who cares if someone will scold at him for being a thug, sitting without any care against the cold stone of some spoiled brat nobody loved as he did, anyway. “I want to stay here, just a little longer. I’m sure you don’t mind, and if you did, I wouldn’t care in any case.”

He rests his head against the cold, wet surface of Eichi’s stone, but he doesn’t care about it - at the moment, the only thing he cares about is keeping him company, stuck his own mind in a loop of useless I love you that who knows if they will reach him in the afterlife. In that little space behind Eichi’s grave, Keito wishes he could become one with the earth right now, and become nourishment for the ground, and for Eichi’s soul. Time won’t stop for him, but if he closes his eyes, ever for a few minutes and with a bit of imagination, he can pretend he’s resting against his friend’s back even if he’s now singing among the angels.

There’s time for the rest.   


He’ll learn to live again, one day. 


End file.
